I often find myself rolling my eyes a bit whenever I hear the Christmas song “Silent Night” during this time of year. You see, silent nights have been very few and far between in our house for the past 21 years—ever since we brought our oldest daughter, Maddie, home from the hospital.

This week we begin our journey into the season of Advent. In the Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples to be alert for they know not when the Lord will come.

I have been writing this column for 19 years, and I have covered a lot of topics and chronicled many of the aspects of my and my family’s lives. But one topic I have not addressed head-on—or at least as strongly as I could—has been mental health.

Anyone who knows me knows that when it comes to gift-giving I have two rules, the most important of which is this: no gift cards. My second rule has to do with what I see as the redundancy of getting a greeting card and a gift, but that’s not what I want to talk about here. That first rule is especially important to me at Christmastime.

If there is anything I have learned as a parent, it is that the only thing you can be certain about is that your life with your kids will be filled with uncertainty.

When the Son of Man comes, this week's Gospel tells us, the nations will be separated based on what they did to help those in need.

This week's Gospel reading is about the parable of the talents, in which the servant who buried his talent is admonished, while the one who shared his is praised.

This week's Gospel story recounts Jesus telling the disciples that the Kingdom of Heaven is like 10 virgins going out to meet their bridegrooms.

Before I lost my dad this past summer, every time I would step off the elevator at the nursing home to head to his room I would hear the familiar sound of his television blaring one of the many news programs he watched consistently.